


Isolated Systems

by often_adamanta



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-27
Updated: 2005-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-22 05:28:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/often_adamanta/pseuds/often_adamanta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Originally posted at livejournal <a href="http://often-adamanta.livejournal.com/127275.html">here</a>.</p></blockquote>





	Isolated Systems

“I don’t understand you one bit,” Orlando tells him, watching while he breathes out smoke that looks exactly the same as when his breath puffs in frigid air, but it’s eighty outside today. Orli’s nose wrinkles when the smell wafts toward him, neither liking nor disliking, but accepting the scent as something that goes with the conversation and the other man. “I can’t tell if you really know the answer to everything, or if you’re the best liar I’ve ever met.”

“If you can’t tell, does it matter?”

“Doesn’t it?”

Elijah shrugs, comfortable with the question dangling in the air in a way Orlando will never be. He always tries to ground questions with answers, firm supports that balance the world around him. The one time they talked about it, Elijah was surprised to find that a person who jumped from planes for fun couldn’t believe that sometimes things needed to lift off from the ground and make their own way through the air.

Elijah would fly, if he could. Orlando tries to tether him with as much determination as he gives all the other unresolved questions. Elijah never feels so – tied down – as when he’s with Orlando. He also never feels as safe.

“It’s like you don’t care about anything. But sometimes I think all you do is care, that you could drown from the caring.” Orli is methodically ripping apart the wrapper of a solitary piece of mint gum. His long fingers, strong and calloused from archery and training, constantly fidget and flit and flutter. Elijah’s wondered if his body has only been another object to occupy Orlando’s hands and mind, conveniently available to absorb the excess energy and be shredded again and again.

Elijah shrugs, and Orli sets down the tiny white paper flakes and the wind stirs them, reminding Elijah of the snow globes he used to play with in airport gift shops when he was younger. It always disturbed him that they’d settle after a few seconds, unable to keep floating around their plastic prison which was as much freedom as they’d ever have. His mother still bought him one every Christmas, thinking he liked and collected them, but truthfully, they disturbed him, enough to feel it in the depth of his stomach, but not enough to make him turn away.

“I don’t know why you’re here,” Orli says finally, which although phrased as a statement, is another question that Elijah’s not going to answer. It’s like a dance between them, both trying to lead the other and ending up going in circles because they’re heading in opposite directions. But that’s a bad analogy, because neither of them are the type that dance when it involves leading.

Orlando sighs heavily, observing the faint red and orange glow cast on Elijah’s face. Smoke and shadow and flickers stretch between them with no apology for the distortion it caused, and Orlando wonders if Elijah sees him at all through the scattered reality that seems to insulate them from the world and from each other.

He leans back in his chair as Elijah breathes out another lungful of smoke, adding to the barrier between them. Orlando feels more – displaced – when he's with Elijah than at any other time. He also feels more alive. “I love you,” Orlando confesses finally.

Elijah grins as Orlando reaches out to him. “I love you, too,” he admits, and stubs out his cigarette just before the first crisp thrill of skin against skin.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at livejournal [here](http://often-adamanta.livejournal.com/127275.html).


End file.
